Killer of Police Chief Is Executed in Georgia

AP

Published: May 19, 1989

JACKSON, Ga., May 18—
Henry Willis 3d, who was convicted of shooting a small-town police chief to death one day before the victim was to leave for a new job, died in the electric chair tonight.

Mr. Willis, 36 years old, was pronounced dead at 11:20 P.M. at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Center, said John Siler, a spokesman for the Corrections Department.

He was given the death penalty for his part in the Feb. 11, 1976, killing of Ed Giddens, the 29-year-old police chief of Ray City. The victim's son, Bill Giddens, 20, said after the execution that he was relieved.

Four hours earlier, the United States Supreme Court had denied Mr. Willis's final appeal, with Justices William J. Brennan and Thurgood Marshall dissenting. Two state courts and a Federal District Court had denied a stay of execution earlier in the day, and the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected a plea for clemency. 'He Asked Me to Be Strong'

Millard Farmer, Mr. Willis's lawyer, met with him shortly after the Supreme Court ruling. He said Mr. Willis appeared resigned to his fate and deeply regretted the slaying.

''He asked me to be strong and to fight for the rights of others,'' Mr. Farmer said in a voice choked with emotion. ''If he could relive that night, he would forfeit his own life rather than take that individual's life.''

Mr. Willis was the 14th person executed in Georgia and the 109th in the nation since the Supreme Court allowed the death penalty to be reinstated in 1976.

He was one of three men convicted in Chief Giddens's death. The death sentence of another defendant has been stayed by a Federal court. The third was sentenced to life in prison.

Chief Giddens, who had planned to leave his post the next day for a job managing orange groves in Florida, was abducted after he stopped a car matching the description of one used in a robbery. According to testimony, he was taken to a swamp, where he begged for mercy but was shot twice and thrown in.